Shattered
by RandomCheeses
Summary: The Doctor starts wondering about Earth's status as a galactic danger-magnet. Warning! Contains Emo!Ten
1. Addicted?

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. All I have is a Tardis fridge magnet

* * *

Life finds a way. Everywhere he went, he saw life. Sometimes not for very long, only for a brief moment before it was extinguished like a candle flame, but there it was nonetheless.

Life always found a way. Existing in the light and the dark, the hidden depths and the highest heights. Always there, shining, full of energy and potential.

Human life fascinated him. For it went _everwhere_, far beyond the confines of it's own planet, to the edges of the galaxy and then beyond.

At the end of the universe, when other species were dying out with only a few representatives of each left, humanity was there in the hundreds, if not thousands with a bloody big rocket to show it.

So much life they had. So bright and shining, so much potential. Imagination and ingenuity and an adventurous spirit that he loved, (but it did get them into some godawful messes he had to admit.)

To him, humans were as mayflies. Bright and shining and beautiful. But for such a short time before they inevitably withered and died.

You couldn't fall in love with one. It broke your hearts. To watch the energy and beauty fade so quickly. Oh, it broke him. But he kept finding humans to love. And he broke. Again and again.

Each time he would promise himself: No more humans. But he couldn't keep it. In some way beyond even his comprehension he _needed_ a human, with their silly minds and odd moralities. It was like an addiction.

Was that what it was, he wondered, an addiction? No, something more. You developed addictions, but he'd always needed humans.

Somehow, from the very first days, travelling with his grandaughter in a stolen Tardis, he'd needed a human. Had all but kidnapped the first two to come along, then arranged things so that they couldn't return to earth until he was ready to let them go.

The Earth. His own planet gone, he'd adopted the Earth in a way. He'd offered to fight his enemy across time and space. Across galaxies and star systems, putting trillions of lives in danger if the smiling maniac would only leave the Earth out of it.

And didn't he feel _ashamed_ of that sentence now. Oh yes. But he'd still meant it. That broke him inside. Broke what was already damaged beyond repair into still more pieces.

Perhaps that was it, he thought, arriving at a conclusion. He was already shattered inside and the love of one single human, or even the love of of all his humans together could never change that.

But . . . perhaps protecting the Earth gave him enough purpose to keep the pieces of his soul from shattering further. Perhaps his companions, his friends, stopped the pieces from being ground into dust, shattered as they were.

Children of Time, caring for their father in his old age when he needed them most. He looked upon them all with a kind of love that few ever experience, whether human or otherwise.

He is always broken. He will always be broken. But when he is with one of his Children, he doesn't feel it so badly. Because he knows that he as much as he loves all of them, he is also loved.

* * *

Er. . . I need sugar I think. Review pretty please?


	2. Qualities

Disclaimer: I do not own.

* * *

Why the Earth? This is something he often muses about. In the whole wide universe, with all it's times and places, why, nine times out of ten, does he end up saving the Earth?

This small blue-green planet seems to attract so much danger, so much trouble, so many people determined to destroy it or derail it's established history.

Why?

Deep in the back of his mind, there was a tiny voice telling him that the fault was his, that all the times he'd saved the Earth, he'd somehow caused the problem in the first place.

Back home, on that beautiful planet with the burnt orange sky he'd chosen to study the Earth. And nothing in the archives had ever suggested that quite so many disasters had happened during it's history. Nothing.

Until, running from home with the young child he doted on at his side, he'd chosen a place for them to hide. Earth. Chosen on a whim.

_Tell me, if the Doctor had never come here, had never chosen this place. On a whim. Then would anyone have died?_

He had had no answer. Not for her. And not for himself.

His companions maintained that he saved people. That he was not to be blamed. But they were human. Wonderful bright humans.

How many of their lives had he destroyed?

_This is me. Getting out._

But. . .

If they were right. . .

If they were right, then _why _did the Earth attract so much trouble. And why did he always land in the right place to stop it. The Tardis was alive he knew. But not that alive. She couldn't be.

Someone controlling things. Someone was playing a game. Sending monsters, trying to destroy the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe.

Someone on the opposite side? Sending him to stop it. . .

No.

His life was his own. No one controlled him. No one would ever control him or cage him.

He would continue to run. Always. Never stopping. No.

He ran. Always. Even as a child. Looking into the. . . _thing that should not be_. . . running then. Running now.

Running from the dark. Running to Earth.

Why Earth? If there was a grand game. . . why? What was so important about Earth.

Was someone that powerful so afraid of Earth, afraid of humanity. Why?

Someone else, just as powerful. Fighting back. Using him. Why him?

Humans. Something feared them. He knew they were capable of atrocities. But that couldn't be it. That capability was common to every other species under the myriad suns. What did humans have that terrified something so powerful. What?

They were his favourite species. Was it him? Was he so powerful, would he always side with humans? No.

But. . .

_He opened the doors with a snap of his fingers. Armies would flee before him._

No. No.

It wasn't him, it was something about _them. _Whatever was out there, humans frightened it. Why?

* * *

Review please, the chibis will steal my shoes if you don't.


End file.
